


The Thunderbird

by NetRaptor



Series: NetRaptor's AU Sonicverse [16]
Category: Sonic the Hedgehog (Video Games), Sonic the Hedgehog - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Humor, Thunderbird - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-21 11:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10684779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NetRaptor/pseuds/NetRaptor
Summary: A short, silly story told by Sonic about how he rocked at fighting a thunderbird. Except maybe he didn't, really.





	The Thunderbird

>

Hey, did I ever tell you about the time I saved Knothole from the  
Thunderbird? Yeah, it happened right after I recovered from my bout  
with the anti-verse, but before Mister Black Hedgehog waltzed in in  
July. The Thunderbird had come east and-well, maybe I should start  
at the beginning.  
It started with a thunderstorm. Scary, huh? Watching a  
thunderstorm on the ground has got nothing on being two thousand feet  
up in the middle of one. Tails and I had taken the Tornado down to  
Sapphire City to get a new set of engines. We had been saving up for  
them, because it's as much my plane as it is his. I just let him fly  
it 'cause I'm nice. Not every cool dude lets his sidekick fly the  
plane, you know. Where was I? Oh yeah, the storm. We were on our way  
home when it blew in. We tried to outrun it, but the wind was against  
us, and the engines were too new to try anything interesting.  
Before I knew it, it was pitch black, and I was regretting my  
decision to ride on the upper wing of the biplane. Do you know what  
rain feels like when it runs into you at a hundred miles an hour?  
Like bullets, that's what. I was up there getting my spines torn off,  
and Tails was down in the cockpit, fussing about electrical  
interference. "My instruments are going haywire!" he yelled over the  
general noise of wind, rain and twin jet engines. "I think we're  
gonna get struck!"  
Have you ever been in a cloud full of lightning? No? I hadn't,  
either. All of a sudden the air was ripped into pieces by bolts of  
electricity, and all my spines stood on end. The biplane jumped  
around as a sound that would be called thunder by folks sitting cozily  
in their living rooms wreaked havoc on my eardrums. It went black  
again. Somehow I was still on the biplane, rain trying to peck out my  
eyeballs, and the engines were still going. "Tails!" I yelled. "Get  
us out of this cloud!"  
"I can't!" Tails yelled back, and he sounded scared stiff.  
"Everything's dead! I can't even see my compass!"  
"Then fly us straight up," I called back in perfect calm. A  
little thing like getting fried by lightning never fazed me.  
Ouch. Tails pulled up so fast I smacked my face into the wing.  
The rain changed directions-now it was stinging my hands like quad-  
speed bees. The engines screamed. I heard the rain strike the  
underside of the wings-Tails was flipping us over! I yelled at him  
to level out, but he wasn't looking at me. He had the stick pulled all  
the way back and was staring up at the clouds. I glanced up as we went  
over backward, and saw the Thunderbird.  
It didn't scare me. Huge fanged birds with lightning coming out  
of their wings would never scare me. And I wasn't screaming. I was  
just, uh, yelling for Tails to straighten us out. He did too, after  
two minutes of screeching nosedive. And that wasn't me screeching, it  
was the engines, so don't listen to Tails. He doesn't know what he's  
talking about. The only time I've ever screamed was when Metal Sonic  
tore my arm off. Okay, he never tore my arm off, and I've never  
screamed. Period.  
So we dropped below the clouds and opened the throttle. Tails  
messed with the control panel and got it to come on again-I think he  
beat his fists on it. We kited home like a Thunderbird was after us.  
And like I said, I wasn't scared.

* * *

The storm didn't hit Knothole, which was a good thing for us. The  
first thing we did after we landed was tell everybody about the  
Thunderbird. I mean, that's the logical thing to call some monster bird  
in a storm, right? Too bad nobody believed us. Bunnie actually laughed  
at me. Sally didn't laugh, but she grinned like I'd told a corny joke.  
Turns out that the Thunderbird is a mythical creature, like a unicorn,  
and there are several Mobian folktales about it. How was I supposed to  
know that? It's not like we're big into legends around here, and I  
don't have time to read a stupid book.  
Well, I guess somebody believed us. Slasher always believes me.  
About the time I was ready to spindash the next person who smirked  
at me, Slash walked up and asked me what I saw. I told her what it  
looked like, and got Tails to tell her, too. He'd gotten a better look  
than I had. Slasher is a velociraptor with wings, and she knows a lot  
of stuff about the weather, not to mention other dinosaurs. I hoped  
she'd come up with something, or tell me I wasn't crazy, but she didn't.  
She sorta looked puzzled, and stared at the Tornado off on the  
airstrip. "What do you think it was?" I asked.  
She shrugged her wings. "At this point I don't know." She  
walked off, and I ducked her tail.  
Tails looked at me with narrowed eyes. "Don't tell me you weren't  
scared of it."  
"Hey, I wasn't," I told him.  
"Sure," said Tails. "So what was all that stuff you were yelling  
about 'get us out of here before it kills us'?"  
"I never said that," I said. "You heard me wrong in the wind."  
Really, there was a lot of noise at that point, and how could the poor  
kid expect to understand me?  
Tails gave me a Look and walked off to tinker with the plane.  
Then Serena started having nightmares.  
Serena's my sister. She's okay-for a girl. She can run pretty  
fast, and she doesn't squeal if you throw mud on her or something. Not  
that _I_ would ever do something like that, heh heh, but you get the  
idea. Anyway, sometimes she has dreams about things that haven't happened  
yet. I told her about the Thunderbird, and she started dreaming about  
it. (She also had dreams about Mister Black Hedgehog, but she didn't  
tell me about those for a long time.) She hates storms, so I guess that  
helped. She told me the dreams were always the same: she was in the  
middle of a meadow, and a storm would move in. Just when the thunder and  
lightning were at their worst, the Thunderbird would swoop down. That  
was all, but it terrified her. I never have nightmares, and if I do,  
they don't scare me. That's the kind of guy I am.  
We had gorgeous weather for a couple weeks. Not a cloud in the sky,  
the sun was warm, and the woods turned green again. It was only April,  
you know, so we hadn't had much spring yet. The trails dried out and I  
got to break the sound barrier for the first time in ages. I really  
missed my supersonic chao Velocity. He was so much fun to hang around,  
and I wished I had played with him more in Ultimate form. I was  
forgetting what it looked like. I wasn't the only person who missed  
the chao. As it got warm, everybody remembered the two springs the  
chao had lived with us, and the fun they had climbing trees in the  
fragrant woods.  
I guess I forgot about the Thunderbird, and so did Tails. I was  
almost to the point where I could laugh at Serena's nightmares when we  
had a storm.  
Actually, it only rained. Most of the storm hit further south,  
and as it turned out, so did the Thunderbird.  
The day after the storm we got a message from a town down there.  
Something had come out of the sky, grabbed somebody and carried him off.  
They were pretty freaked about it. Who wouldn't be freaked about some  
monster in the sky, other than yours truly? What scared them was that  
after the storm they found the guy. Or what was left of him. Apparently  
he had been a snack for something really big.  
I grabbed a gun, and Slasher and I flew down to see if we could  
find the Thunderbird. See, if it had killed somebody, it wasn't a  
legend anymore. It was a menace.  
The town was three times bigger than Knothole, and built up  
against the southern edge of the Great Forest. It sure didn't look like  
the kind of place where people got eaten by monsters. Slasher landed  
outside the police station, and these guys in uniforms led us inside.  
They looked really nervous, and I don't think it was because they were  
hosting the two most dangerous dudes on Mobius.  
Slasher wanted to see the body, and they led us into the room  
where they had it. I don't know what I was expecting-probably some  
mauled chunk of meat-but I didn't expect what we saw. All that was left  
were a few bones and bits of fur. Yuck! I waited outside while Slasher  
looked it over, for clues, I guess. I'm not into this forensics stuff.  
After a minute she came out, as cool as a cucumber. She's used  
to seeing dead animals, because sometimes she goes out into the woods  
and catches a few meals. Sounds barbaric to me. Give me a chilidog any  
day. I ain't no killer, and I want my food totally unrecognizable by  
the time I eat it.  
The sheriff or somebody came out and talked to us. I guess the  
dead guy was related to him somehow. He told us that the dead guy (before  
he was dead, duh) went outside for a look at the storm, and was carried  
off. He was in the middle of town, too! His bits and pieces were found  
in a field a mile outside of town. Slasher asked if they could show us  
where they found him, and the sheriff agreed. I hopped in the cab of  
a truck, Slash hopped in the back, and we drove very slowly out of town.  
Cars are so boring; there's all these dumb rules about how to drive  
one!  
Anyway, we got out to the field about three days later, and  
Slash and I jumped out for a look. None of the cops would come with  
us-I hadn't realized they were all yellow chickens. They looked more  
like squirrels and foxes to me.  
So Slash and I walked out and snooped around. It was bright and  
sunny, and all the grass was clean from the rain. But there was this  
patch of black smack in the middle of the green, like somebody had  
burned tumbleweeds. Slasher snorted. "He was here, all right. Stay  
put, Sonic, I don't want the scent disturbed." I stood, fiddling with  
my gun, watching her sniff around. The police must not have disturbed  
it too much.  
"Well?" I asked when she came back.  
She looked puzzled. "Not a thing. No scent at all, except where  
the remains were dropped. But I did find this." She held out a piece  
of wood. I took it and realized it was solid rock. "Petrified," she  
told me, as if I didn't know. "And you know how rare it is." As if I  
didn't know that, either.  
"Maybe he had it in his pocket," I said.  
She took it from me and turned it over. "Maybe. But maybe whatever  
blasted this area petrified it."  
"You mean the Thunderbird has some sort of forcefield?" I asked.  
She cocked an eye at me. "You tell me. Didn't you say it had  
lightning coming out of its wings?"  
I backpedaled. "But Slash, you know, it was real dark and the  
bird was up in the clouds-I didn't see it too well-the lightning was  
probably in front of it." I looked down at the burned grass. "It might  
be a dragon."  
"Did it have feathers?"  
"I donno, it was a silhouette. But it had teeth. Big ones."  
Slasher looked up at the cloudless sky. "I wonder where it goes  
after a storm. I think it's time for a flight."  
We checked in with the sheriff and told him we were gonna try to  
find the Thunderbird. He was glad, I think. After all, has Sonic the  
Hedgehog ever gone up against a monster he couldn't whip?  
Slash flew around with me on her back for the rest of the day,  
but we didn't find a thing. Not even a tree struck by lightning. Nothing  
is more boring than wasting time. I never waste any time, running  
around like I do. Even Slash doesn't waste much, even if she is slower  
than me.  
We turned up zilch and flew home. Tails was waiting for me, and  
I could tell by the look on his face that he had something to tell me.  
I left Slasher telling about the day's trip and headed off with Tails.  
"Sonic," he said, his eyes bright but serious, "I was going  
through the books I borrowed from Knuckles, and I found an echidna  
legend about the Thunderbird!"  
In that case, we'd struck pay dirt. Having a sidekick who likes to  
do all the slow things you hate definitely has its perks. Tails took me  
to his hut, opened a little book with yellow pages, and pointed to a  
section. The language was old-fashioned, but by concentrating I could  
follow it. It told about the Bird of Thunder straying from its home and  
taking away the echidnas for food. They sent two Island Warriors our to  
get it, and eventually they shot it down with "fire arrows". (According  
to Knux, those were actually some kind of energy weapon.) But the bird  
didn't die. It fought them on the ground and injured one of the warriors.  
The remaining dude called for backup, and the other five warriors came  
to help. It took all seven of them to kill it. Then, in due echidna  
fashion, they took measurements and did an autopsy. There were lots of  
drawings of guts and muscles, gross. But they still didn't know where  
it came from, and they never said why they called it the Bird of Thunder.  
Figures. The echidnas were so thorough about some things and so clueless  
about others. Even Knux is like that sometimes.  
I thanked Tails and decided to call Knux and see if he knew  
anything about the Thunderbird.  
He did.  
It wasn't exactly hair-raising, but if I wasn't the kind of guy  
to get freaked out, it would have freaked me out. Knux had seen the thing  
flying inland. He hadn't said anything because he was afraid we'd think  
he was nuts. He said it had been a cloudy evening, but not stormy. He  
had been out watching the weather, wondering if he should lower the  
island for the night, when there was a flash of lightning. And just  
below the clouds there was this huge thing flying. Now, Knux gets scared  
about as often as I do, and he never admits it if he was. And he told  
me it scared him. Don't spread it around though, he'll kill me.  
A few more days went by. It rained a little, but we didn't have  
any storms. Serena's dreams started to taper off, probably because we  
were all working. See, a few years ago Robotropolis was totally flattened  
by this junk called Terbium. We'd been trying to clean up the rubble ever  
since. The work's been a little faster lately because a few industries  
got in touch with Sally about rebuilding. It seems a lot of people lost  
a lot of business and moola when Robotnik took over, and they'd like to  
get things restarted. Sally was totally hyper. She loves this kind of  
stuff, and wants to make the rebuilt Mobitropolis more beautiful than  
the original. I said fine, but she can have it. I remember Mobitropolis,  
and I like Knothole better. Anyway, we were recruited for raw labor,  
and were helping build stuff. The land we cleared was covered in these  
little surveyor stakes with pink ribbons fluttering in the breeze.  
Did you know a thunderstorm can roll in in just a few hours? I  
didn't know they could move that fast. It was sunny when we stopped for  
lunch. By the time we resumed work, half the sky was black. The other  
half didn't take long to follow suit, and soon we were out there in  
pouring rain. Serena came and found me. Like I said, she hates storms,  
and we kept scanning the sky in spite of ourselves. The job boss yelled  
for us to get under cover and wait it out. A storm moving that fast  
would be over soon.  
There we were, jammed into the cabs of tractors and trucks like  
sardines. Serena and I were the only ones who didn't get sat on, seeing  
as our spines make it pretty uncomfortable. We hid out in the back of a  
pickup with a cover, and stared out at the pouring rain. Neither of us  
mentioned the Thunderbird. I wasn't scared, but Serena was. She jumped  
at every lightning flash. Odd, since she's never actually seen the  
Thunderbird. I was watching her more than the storm, when she screamed  
in a whisper, "There it is!"  
It wasn't scary when it flew over. It was really interesting. And  
I didn't cower down on the bed of the truck like Serena says I did. She  
was the one who did that. But I did jump out into the rain when Tails  
ran by with the camera.  
Tails had been carrying a camera to work every day on the off  
chance we might see the Thunderbird. It was a little waterproof deal he  
wore strapped to his wrist. And fear forgotten, he was running around in  
the mud, camera held to his eye, snapping pictures like fury. I had a  
sudden vision of my sidekick's fur and bones strewn all over the the  
ground, and ran after him. Where did the little creep get the idea to do  
that, anyway? Wasn't he scared? Well, I suppose he got it from hanging  
around me, heh heh, not that it's always a good thing.  
The bird by this time had flown over twice and was flying off in  
the direction the storm was headed. Tails was running after it, still  
snapping pictures. As I got closer I heard him muttering, "Gimme a  
lightning flash, c'mon, just one flash-"  
Flash.  
I blinked and heard the camera click.  
As the thunder rolled over us, I caught up to him and grabbed his  
arm. He turned and grinned at me, soaking wet and splattered with mud.  
"A roll!" he yelled, shoving his dripping camera in my face. "I got a  
whole roll!"

* * *  
There were thirty-six exposures in that roll of film, and once we  
got them developed, we realized we had a problem.  
There was not one single picture of the Thunderbird.  
Needless to say, Tails was devastated. The thing was, we had all  
seen it. It had flown over twice, for Pete's sake! (Whoever Pete is.)  
We told Rotor about it, seeing as he's our mechanic around here.  
He looked all thoughtful and asked Tails for the negatives. Tails gave  
them to him, and Rote loaded them up on Nicole and played them on the  
holoprojector.  
It turned out Tails had photographed the Thunderbird after all.  
After messing with color and filter settings, Rotor showed us something  
really weird. In each picture was a little ripple against the clouds. "So  
the thing is invisible?" I asked.  
Rotor shook his head. "I don't think it's that simple. Here, Sally,  
have Nicole tell us what that is."  
Sally took Nicole and said, "Nicole, please scan photographs for  
unusual light patterns."  
"Scanning, Sally," said Nicole.  
I tapped my foot. "How long's this gonna take?"  
"As long as it takes," said Sally without looking up. Man, I hate  
it when she gets like that. Especially when I could explode with curiosity.  
After a month or so, Nicole displayed an enlarged photo. "Scans  
detect disturbance in this area," she said, highlighting the ripple.  
Duh. "Possible matches: Dimension portal. Disturbance in the space-time  
continuum. Radiation."  
I pointed at the bird-ripple. "You're telling me that that sucker  
is nuclear?"  
"No," said Rotor. He has this habit of sucking on his tusks when  
he's thinking. After all, he is a walrus. "The bird might actually be in  
another dimension, and all we see is a reflection projected into ours."  
"Sure," I scoffed, "and that explains how it can eat people.  
Holograms always do that. I'll bet that's where my socks go."  
Sally ignored me and stared at the photo. "That's not possible,  
unless the continuum has been disrupted, or there's a portal open in the  
area."  
"Or maybe it got tangled up in a portal and is dragging it around," I  
suggested, expecting them to ignore me again. Instead they both looked  
at me.  
"If that's so," said Rotor, "maybe that's why it seems to generate  
a storm whenever it appears."  
"They always come out of nowhere," I added helpfully.  
Sally looked at me, but her eyes weren't focused. "That could be ...  
maybe it goes in and out of the portal ... but a tear in the fabric of  
space and time wouldn't attach to a solid object. And there are more of  
its kind, according to the story Tails found." I had showed her the  
story about the Bird of Thunder after talking to Knuckles.  
"But why would it appear now?" she went on. "Has there been a  
recent disturbance?"  
"A couple," I said. "Chaos came out of the Master Emerald, and we  
turned on that biotic machinery to make the portal to the anti-verse."  
Sally's eyes focused on me. "Maybe they called it to us."  
The door opened and Slasher looked in, so casual she was fit to  
bust. "Busy?" she asked.  
"Kinda," said Sally. "Why?"  
"No reason," said Slasher, fixing an eye on me. "I just ran across  
something I thought you might be interested in."  
Us? Ha. She captured the whole village's undivided attention. What  
Slasher found were the remains of another Thunderbird victim, barely a  
mile from Knothole. Again it was in the middle of a huge burnt patch.  
And again, any wood that had been too wet to burn had been turned to  
stone.  
There wasn't enough left of the victim to even identify species,  
let alone who it was. We buried it-in a shoebox-and returned to trying  
to piece together the meaning of Tails's weird pictures. Personally,  
I was stumped. Even Chaos left obvious clues behind. The Thunderbird  
was too much for me.  
At least, I thought that until Amy showed up.  
Amy's this bratty hedgehog who has a terminal crush on me. She's  
about five years younger than me. Sally had told me that the Rose family  
would be living in the village until they could get their business  
running in Mobitropolis. Unfortunately, it didn't ring a bell until the  
hedgehogs stepped out of the hovercar, and Amy shrieked, "SONIC!"  
You know, I wish we'd find some pink fur and an hair ribbon in the  
middle of a burnt patch somewhere. Humiliating! I tried to pry her arms  
off my neck while everybody stood around and laughed. I was turning red,  
which isn't a good thing, because it doesn't go well with blue. I pushed  
her away, and she bounced up and down, clapping her hands and squealing,  
"Sonicsonicsonicsonicsonic!"  
I ran for it.  
I sneaked back into the village after dark, starving, and staring  
around for pink hedgehogs. I expected Amy to jump on me from out of a  
tree or something, but she was in one of the rental huts with her folks,  
eating dinner. Whew, I was safe. I went to find something to eat, and  
had a heart attack when Serena pounced at me and imitated Amy's chant  
of, "Sonicsonicsonic!" Then she doubled up laughing. "I can't believe  
you're scared of her!"  
"I'm not scared of her," I snarled. "I just don't need some silly  
little girl worshipping me."  
"Oh really?" asked Serena, looking me in the eye. "Then why do  
you expect everybody else to?"  
She never cuts me any slack if she can help it. But she won some  
points by showing me the plate of grub she saved me when I didn't  
appear for dinner. I guess sisters are good for something after all.  
I hid out in my hut with the food, and Serena sat on the floor and  
told me about a couple flickies that had come with Amy. "They said  
they knew you," she said. "One's named Cirrus, and he hung around with  
Amy a lot. He's green. Then there's a pink one named NiÃ±a and a grey one  
named Nimbo. NiÃ±a said you'd know her by the name 'Gamma'."  
I didn't interrupt the rhythm of shovelling food into my mouth.  
"Yeah, I know her. She was one of the E-series robots."  
"Anyway, they'd like to see you sometime," Serena said, picking  
a burr out of the cuff of her jeans. "It's a good thing Amy's here, if  
you ask me."  
"Nobody asked you," I snapped, feeling the helpless embarrassment  
of having Amy throw herself at me.  
Serena looked at me, kinda hurt, so I asked in a softer tone,  
"Why?"  
"Because you won't worry about the Thunderbird so much."  
Come to think of it, I hadn't given it a thought all day. As far as  
I was concerned, Amy was a much bigger threat.  
Yeah, right. It only gets weird from here on out. And I'm talking  
WEIRD.

* * *

What with dodging Amy and working, I didn't see much of Knothole for  
a while. Working all day wipes you out. You work out in the sun, sweat  
pouring off you, driving nails, running power tools, shovelling wet cement.  
Then you go home exhausted, and all you can think of is eating like a  
horse-or a hedgehog-and going to bed. Then the next day, you're feeling  
great and eager to get back to work, because the project is going ahead  
of schedule! Then add to the mix a pink hedgehog who screams your name  
every time she sees you, making people turn and stare. Work looks really  
good, let me tell you.  
It didn't rain, the weather warmed up, and work was going great  
when something ELSE happened.  
These three lizard things came to Knothole. They were about half  
my height, and wore long cloaks with hoods, so all you could see were  
their eyes shining out at you. They hopped around the village,  
squeaking at people when they least expected it. Nasty little jerks,  
I wish we'd run them out.  
Know what they did? They ganged up on me when I was coming back  
from work, sweaty and tired. "You! You!" they squeaked, standing in a  
row so I couldn't go by. "You're the one!"  
"I'm the man, all right," I said, not understanding what they  
meant. "Outta my way, squeak-toys."  
They started jumping up and down and chittering, "The one, the one!  
We have found him! The one who will save us from the Bird of Thunder!"  
Uh oh. That should have told me something was up. "What?"  
They knew they had my attention now. They stopped bouncing, and  
one said, "You are the one we've been looking for! Once the Bird of  
Thunder has fed on your flesh, it will go away and leave us in peace!"  
You try having somebody say that to you and see how you react.  
Fortunately, I'm not the kind to take a bunch of weirdos seriously.  
I shrugged them off and went on my way, and my spines were not standing  
up. They had been that way all day. The lizards followed me, chittering  
and gibbering. Pests. I went to my hut and locked the door to keep them  
out.  
But they weren't finished. Their goal was to make what was left of  
my life miserable. They ran around and told everybody that I was the  
Thunderbird's final victim.  
Well, they did until they crossed paths with Amy. See, Amy doesn't  
take kindly to anybody saying bad things about her self-proclaimed  
'boyfriend'. I guess it's kinda useful. The lizards were hopping around  
her, squeaking their news. "Wait," she said. "You're saying you're going  
to feed Sonic to some monster?"  
Too bad for the lizards. Amy's carried a mallet with her for ages.  
I think she got it on the Egg Carrier. Anyway, she whipped it out and let  
them have it. She felled one with a blow to the head, and chased the  
leader around the village.  
Served the pests right.  
What with the lizards, Amy and work, I REALLY didn't see much of  
Knothole. Too bad, too. If I had talked to the flickies like I should  
have, things would have fallen out differently. After all, they knew how to  
stop the Thunderbird and I didn't.  
It had been hot for about two weeks. I mean the kind of hot that  
chokes you, melts your ice cream before you can get it to your mouth, and  
bakes any skin to a crispy brown. There were folks walking around with  
bleached fur and skin like the crust of fried chicken. Get me? It was  
hot. Work was miserable, and some of us (like Serena and Tails) wound up  
with heatstroke. Not good. We took to knocking off work for two hours in  
the afternoons.  
The heat wasn't the problem, though. See, when we have a heatwave  
like this one, the weather usually breaks with a big storm. So we  
tolerated the heat and hoped it would never break.  
But all good things come to an end, and one morning it was as  
oppressive as an open oven. A big cloudbank built up in the northwest. As  
the day passed, it got closer, eating up the blue sky. Once in a while  
we heard thunder. But there was no wind, and the air was so thick you  
could have cut it into blocks and sold it as mattress stuffing. We watched  
the front move in as we worked, and that evening the sun set into a  
fluffy thunderhead and was never heard from again.  
We battened down the hatches in the village, and two words of  
terror were circulated-"Thunderbird" and "tornado". We don't usually  
have tornados, but they aren't impossible, and funnel clouds are spotted  
once in a while. What with the thought of the Thunderbird, nobody was  
happy that night.  
It was hot as a blast furnace, and the storm was taking its time  
about storming. I locked myself in my hut, but huts are no good in three-  
digit weather with no air conditioning, so I opened the windows.  
Huts are also no good when a Thunderbird and a weird religious  
faction are after you.  
I lay in my hammock, sticky with sweat and listening to the  
thunder in the distance. I must have dozed, because the next thing I knew  
there was a crack of thunder right overhead, and my hut was full of  
flickering candles.  
I jumped to the floor, not at all startled to see my hut was now  
decorated with bones, candles and other creepy things. I dove for the  
door, but there were the lizards. They had ditched their cloaks, and  
were barring my way. They looked like little velociraptors with long  
necks. "I don't think so," the leader hissed. "The preparations are not  
complete."  
Who needs a sharp tongue? I have sharp spines. I spindashed them  
and nailed the leader on my way to the door. I groped for the doorknob,  
but with a shock realized it was gone. My hands encountered boards and  
nailheads-they had barricaded me in! I spun to face the lizards. There  
was a flash of lightning, and I saw they all had spines or frills on  
their necks. I don't like candlelight. It's too creepy, and it made  
them look like three little demons.  
"Get out of my hut," I panted, wishing I sounded meaner.  
The leader hadn't been hurt much, because he growled, "It won't  
be yours much longer."  
Would you believe me if I told you I wrung their squeaky necks and  
escaped unharmed? Well ... would you believe me if I told you I might  
have got bitten once or twice, but still escaped? Okay, you wouldn't,  
but this is the abridged version, remember. I can tell it like I want  
to. Besides, getting trounced by three skinny lizards is too embarrassing  
to talk about. Nobody would believe it anyway.  
Okay, so they beat me up. And they might have bit me. They made  
me sit through their evil ceremony as they chanted my name over and  
over, then called for the Thunderbird. I didn't believe a word of it,  
and it didn't work, either, because I'm protected by somebody greater  
than their forces of darkness, and it ain't Slasher.  
Then, before I knew they were done, one took a club and asked me  
if I wanted to go the easy way or the hard way. Without waiting for my  
reply, he clonked me on the head and said, "The easy way."  
When I woke up, I was tied to a post out in the middle of a  
meadow, and the lizards were nowhere in sight. Like I said, we should  
have run them out. A few rocks were set up in front of me like an  
altar, and on top of them was my emerald belt, carefully folded, and  
Slasher's whistle. The storm was pretty close by now, because a hot  
wind was hissing through the grass, and the lightning was going off  
like special effects.  
Okay, I was starting to get a little worried. I flailed around,  
but my wrists were tied to that wooden post, and a spindash would rip  
my arms off. I tried to reach my stuff with my toes, but it was too far  
away. Doggone those lizards! I pursed my lips and whistled, but the  
pitiful sound was blown away by the wind. I can whistle with my  
fingers, but that didn't work with my hands tied.  
Then the wind went cold. Or maybe my blood turned to ice. No,  
that would imply fear, so I guess it was the wind that changed. There  
was this horrible scream, and I saw the Thunderbird again. It was  
circling. And my belt was just out of reach.  
Stupid lizards.  
It came down like a black tent, and there was electricity sparking  
from its wingtips. For an instant I saw its ivory claws, then they  
closed around me, and I heard my ropes snap.  
What was it like? Well, honestly I don't remember. There's a  
blank in my memory right there. The next thing I can remember is flying  
in the rain and being in a lot of pain. See, every time it beat its  
wings, lightning flashed out of the bird in all directions, and I  
was soundly electrocuted. You try being electrocuted about once every  
three seconds. The only thing I thought between charges was that this  
time my heart had stopped. This time I was dead.  
Then it landed. I was laid across a branch with a talon in my back,  
and I heard it sharpen its beak. I opened my eyes and saw its hideous  
leathery head, and the crimson mottled beak. The beat was serrated like  
a steak knife. I didn't have the wits to struggle, and my muscles had  
been tenderized, so they were temporarily unemployed. In a minute I would  
be a little pile of bones and blue spines.  
Suddenly it was gone. I was alone on the branch, rain pouring down  
on my poor fried back. I couldn't do anything in my liquefied state, so I  
just lay there, my mind in a total fog.  
Presently my body spasmed, and I grabbed the branch to steady  
myself. My strength was coming back, and for the first time I wondered  
how far from the ground I was. Below me was a black void. I looked up at  
the angry sky. I've been in a few rough situations, and I think right  
then, sitting in a tree in a storm, was the worst of all.  
Then a voice screamed my name.  
I looked up and saw a little bird whisk down and land on my branch.  
It was soaking wet and scared out of its mind. It was the grey flicky that  
had come with Amy. Nimbo, I think. "Sonic!" he screeched.  
I wasn't deaf, sheesh. "What?"  
He peered at me. "Great, you're alive! Sonic, you must send him  
back!"  
"Who? The Thunderbird?"  
"Yes yes! He is from the Island of the Flickies! He came through a  
flicky portal by accident and has been in our dimension ever since!" This  
was rattled off as fast as the bird could make his tongue go, and it  
took a second to filter down into my brain.  
"You mean it's a dinosaur?"  
"Thunderbirds are not dinosaurs, Sonic. When he returns, take the  
band off his leg! It will send him home!"  
Band? Home? Sheesh, wake up, Sonic. I wasn't exactly scared, but I  
wasn't exactly coherent, either. Shock was setting in, ha ha.  
Nimbo gave a squawk and fluttered off into the darkness, and I heard  
the Thunderbird coming back. I guess his temporal instability had  
accidently skipped him away from me. Great words, huh? I looked toward  
him, and for a second all I could see was that ripple from Tails's photo.  
Then it got closer and became the Thunderbird. I needed to take away his  
flute so he couldn't play in the band-no, no, I needed to take off the  
band. Wake up, Sonic!  
It landed on the branch and folded its wings. It was a pterodactyl,  
I thought. The proper name was actually Quetzalcoatlus, but "Thunderbird"  
is easier on the tongue. It was huge. I scanned its thick, knotty legs.  
Around one of them was a gold band with a bolt in it.  
I have no idea why a band around a flying reptile's leg would hold  
it in a particular dimension. I mean, who put on the band in the first  
place? Metal Sonic? Hah, I'd like to see him try it. Anyway, I wasn't in  
the mood or the place to question the logic of the situation. I reached  
out, grabbed the bolt and turned, just as the bird seized my leg in its  
beak. Yeeowch. Kind of like getting your leg caught in a chainsaw. Good  
thing for me the bolt came out of the hole just then. My leg fell through  
its beak, because the bird's whole body went ghost. The band was the only  
solid thing about it, and it just fell off. I looked up at the Thunderbird  
to see it throw back its head, spread its bat-wings and shoot lightning  
into the clouds. Then its body twisted into a blur of color and disappeared  
into a tiny, bright hole in the air. Then that disappeared, too.  
I heard the legband strike the ground with a clang.

* * *

Hero. (her'o) A. The principle male personage, usually of noble  
character, in a poem or story. B. A person of distinguished valor or  
fortitude. C. An idiot who sits in a tree all night.  
Wouldn't you know it, but the worst injury I sustained in the whole  
thing was a headcold from sitting in the rain for hours? I couldn't see  
worth a darn, and in my weakened state I didn't dare try to climb down.  
That night was about seventy-two hours long, let me tell you. I had never  
been so glad to see the sun rise. And it wasn't long after that that  
Slasher flew up out of the trees, a flicky flying behind her yelling,  
"There he is!"  
I was a hero, all right.  
On the way home, Slasher showed me the spot where I had been  
picked up. As soon as the Thunderbird had touched the ground, its  
electricity blasted the ground, burning everything under it. Did you  
know that extreme voltage can turn wood into stone? I sure didn't. Slash  
told me that she had found the three lizards hiding nearby, holding my  
whistle and my belt and sniggering to themselves. I don't know if she  
killed them or ran them off, but I never saw them again.  
The Thunderbird was one of the creatures who lived in the home  
dimension of the flickies on Flicky Island. When Metal Sonic created the  
rift distortion to pull the flickies through, not only did he pull through  
some extra debris (like Zephyer), he also pulled through a few odd  
dinosaurs, like the Thunderbird. It had hung around the island for a  
while, it's extra-dimensional powers disrupting things, then came east  
to the mainland. The alarmed Royal Flickies sent word to their mainland  
cousins, which is why Nimbo knew what to do.  
Hail the conquering hero comes! I marched into the village to  
cheers and fireworks and confetti ... okay, maybe I was only mobbed by my  
adoring fans ... All right, all right, all that happened was my friends  
ran up and asked, "Is he okay?"  
All I wanted, to tell the truth, was to go to bed and get warm-  
I was soaking wet, you know-but Slash marched me to the medical hut for  
an exam. Sheesh, can't a guy do anything around here without folks  
freaking out?  
Like I said, I got a shocking cold, ha ha, but I was okay otherwise.  
Sure, I had some Thunderbird nightmares, but they didn't scare me.  
Nothing scares me!  
Okay, maybe there IS something I'm afraid of.  
They let Amy be my nursemaid.

The End


End file.
